darcshadow

As a owner of a MH, I can agree that it's best to skip it and go to SC or better. Not saying the MH can't be made to work, but it takes quite a bit of tweaking and fine tuning to get it to cut well and it'll never cut as good as the higher end machines. Also, while the startup kit deals are attractive, in general they are not worth it. Just get the cutter you want, some app tape, and a few colors to start and you can figure out what else you need/want as you go along. There are a lot of tools that are nice to have but often times you can made do with stuff from around the house.

Found this but the specifications sheet says"Plotting needs to be tested as this is a laminated product". They offer free 5"x7" samples. Might be worth a try. https://www.decorativefilm.com/plain-frosted-colors

Signblazer is free and works well with the mh. Inkscape is also free and can be used with the mh. Although setting it up does require a little more computer comms understanding.

I'm pretty sure tint places just hand cut the stuff slightly larger than the window then put it on and trim to exact size by hand.

If you want to get your feet wet with software you can download Inkscape for free and give it a go. It's a very powerful free vector program. Vector graphics are one of the biggest hitches people new to the field have getting their head around. Understanding vector graphics is about half the battle in learning to use a cutter.

Yeah

Inkscape does a nice job, Vinyl Master is also quite good. As for work after, that depends on how good of an image you have to start with as well as various settingn in the vectoring software.

Are you wanting to print on paper and contour cut that? Or print on vinyl? With the software, and manually aligning your cutter you can do it, although not as easy as other machines. If you're wanting to cut paper you'll need a carrier sheet and I don't know how well any of them work with paper.

I believe how the eps is saved has an effect. I have SageThumbs on my windows 7 machine and I can see about half of my eps files as thumbnails. I seem to recall seeing someplace an option to save with or without a thumbnail in some program but I don't recall which one.

My sister purchased a Cameo 3 and a heat press and made several gifts for Christmas this year. I was very impressed with the amount of detail she was able to cut and it got me wondering what is the cheapest large cutter (24" or so) that could match the detail of the cameo? Anyone here work with, or seen work done by a Cameo 3 and know a comparable large size cutter?

Inkscape is a great design tool but was not designed as a cutting program. It can cut, and I actually use it quite a lot, but a true cutting program would be a easier option for most people.

Curious, what sort of grass grows on your press?

I don't believe the PNG file existed when SignBlazer was created. You're best bet is going to be saving the file as an EPS. I'm curious too, what is POD?

SOme more playing around and I figured out my problem. In wireframe mode the break curve joins the two break points with a straight line. However if I use wireframe fill on the shape, I can truely break the curve. Might give that a try and see if it works for you.

Ok, and now I can't do it again. I do the two break curve points and a line appears joining the two points. When I then do a break apart command, I get a sliver of the circle and a 3/4 circle with a line joining it. I can delete the sliver but the line segment joining the curve I can't delete. And to add additional confusion, I just tried to do it in order to get screen shots of what it was doing and now I can delete the line segment. Something is weird. Ok, think I figured it out, and I think this could be a bug. If I'm in wireframe mode I can not delete the line segment. When I do the break curve at the two points I get image on the left. When I break apart I then get two pieces as on the right. Now, if I am not in wire frame mode, but rather use wire frame fill as mentioned in the previous post then I can delete the line segment and get the desired 3/4 circle.

Started playing around more with Vinyl Master and the node editing capabilities. One thing I could not figure out, or if it's even possible, was to delete a line segment between two nodes. For example, if I have a circle that is made up of 4 nodes, top, bottom, left and right. Is it possible to delete the segment between the Top and Right nodes so that I am left with a 3/4 circle line? The best I've been able to do so far is to delete the arc but have it replaced with a straight line connecting the nodes. I want the shape to be open, no longer a shape, just a simple line. In Inkscape, this ability it called "Delete Segment between two non-endpoints", is there something equivalent in Vinyl Master?

I think you're having the same issue I had, and I thought I had it figured out, but now I can't do it. Here's the posting where I asked my question. The break curve thing doesn't seem to work as you would expect it to.

easiest way to crop a vector is to draw a box on top of what you want to get rid of and do a punch through, punch out, or what ever it's called in the software you happen to be using.

True for older versions of Inkscape, but the current version, and I thing the previous 2 revs support opening EPS files without any additional software requirements.

Sublimation is going to be your best bet.

I agree with the others, go at least one step up from the MH. I have a MH and wish I has gone for something a bit better. The MH will get the job done, but it's a bit more work than it should be. As for the computer, if what ever cutter you get you connect to through the serial port the computer will be able to talk to it. No need for driver or anything of the sort. That being said, moving to a newer computer would be highly recommended. You should be able to still run Flexisign 5.5 on a new PC so you won't be learning a whole new system, just a new OS that is pretty straight forward for all the basic stuff. Windows updates only really get annoying when you start diving into the details and settings of things that a basic PC user would not be messing with anything.

Thanks, I could have sworn I tried that. Just tried it again and it worked, so I don't know what I was doing last time. It did do one thing I was not expecting, when I deleted the curve, it was replaced with a straight line joining the two nodes. So I selected that and deleted it and got to the results pictured above.

I purchased a heat press that came was bundled with 5 colors of Premium HTV from UScutter. Any one know what the temp. should be for this vinyl? There was no paperwork for the vinyl. My guess is it would be pretty close to that of Siser Easyweed but figured I'd ask here before I started experimenting.

Thanks. I must have just over looked it.

What do you mean didn't work? Setting the blade depth is only the first step. From there you then adjust speed and pressure. What exactly is it that is not working?